Railway-rail.



gmnum mm i lllllllTl PATENTED JULY 18, 1905.

172 0672???? 54x6 b9 Mam, @WW l JQZZW UNITED STATES Patented July 18, 1905.

PATENT OFFICE.

AXEL A. STROM, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, ASSIGNOR TO PETTIBONE, MULLIKEN & COMPANY, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, A CORPORATION OF ILLINOIS.

RAILWAY-RAIL.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 794,954, dated July 18, 1905. Application filed December 23, 1904:- Serial No. 233,098.

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, AXEL A. STROM, a citizen of the United States, residing at Chicago, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Railway-Rails, of which the followingisa specification.

My invention relates to an improvement in the structural form of the T variety of rails employed in railway-tracks, more particularly in frogs, crossings, and switches therein.

Where, as is the common practice in a railway-frog, the tread-surfaces of the head portions of the wing-rails are of the same crosssectional dimension as that of the main rails, the frog-point and. the portions of the wingrails adjacent thereto are subject to rapid wear from pounding against them of the wheels of the rolling-stock in passing over them, with the effect of shortening accordingly the duration of the life of the frog. This pounding is materially augmented where the wear upon the tread surfaces of the wheels from rolling upon the relatively narrow tread-surfaces of the heads of the ordinary T-rails of the main track grooves the wheel treads, and thereby forms what is known as the artificial flange toward their outer circumferential edges, since the depressions about the wheel treads cause the wheels to drop in their transition from one to the other of the frog-point and a wing-rail. In the case of railway-crossings this pounding against the ends of the rails where spaces are provided between them at the .rail intersections to admit the wheel-flanges also occurs from causes analogous to those explained with relation to railway-frogs with the same detrimental effect upon the rails, and the same wear takes place on the rails at the switches in a railway-track.

The object of my invention is to reduce in a very material measure the extent of wear referred to by providing the rail employed in a position to be subjected thereto with a treadsurface so expanded as compared with the width of head of the main rail employed as to increase its wearing-surface and to adapt it to take the Wheels, however much they may be grooved with wear, without much, if any, shock or pounding by reason of the wider rail tread surface relative to the width of wheel-tread, whereby it will tend to contact with the wheel-tread at both sides of any circumferential groove therein. To this end I expand the wearing-surface of the rail by increasing the transverse thickness of its head portion entirely and uniformly throughout one side thereof to serve as the outer side, leaving the inner side or side with which the wheel-flange engages of normal width to maintain the gage-line with the main rail, which alines with it, and as a modified construction to prevent tendency in the rail, owing to the one-sided widening of its head, to careen outwardly under the stresses to which it is subjected in use I reinforce it with vertical ribs on that side extending at suitable intervals between the base or flange of the rail and its head.

In the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 is a transverse section of my improved rail, taken at the line 1 on Figs. 2 and 3 and viewed in the direction of the arrow; Fig. 2, a broken plan View of the same, and Fig. 3 a broken view of the same in side elevation.

The rail A may have its base a and web Z) of normal relative proportions, and the gagecheek c of the head 0 is of the normal width from the vertical center of the web of the corresponding checks of the main-rail heads with which it is intended to alinc in a railwaytrack to maintain the gage-line therein. The opposite outer cheek c of the rail-head is widened, preferably to the extent of about double the width of the check 0', as shown, and the bevels underneath both checks should be maintained at the same angle, as represented, to permit proper fit of the splice-bars ,employed in joining the rail A at bolt-holes (Z d in its opposite end portions with mainline rails. The side of the check 0 is essentially perpendicular to render that check of the same lateral thickness throughout the length of the rail above its beveled under side.

At intervals along the outer side of the rail A it is preferably provided with vertical reinforcing-ribs 6, formed integral with the rail in making it, and where it is desired that these ribs shall extend at their lower ends beyond the vertical plane in which the side of the cheek 0 lies they are widened toward their lower ends, and the rail-base a on that side of the rail is correspondingly widened, as indicated by the dotted representation in Fig. 1.

What I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

1. The herein-described construction of a railway-rail forming a frog wing-rail, a crossing-rail or switch-rail with an expanded wearing tread-surface for the purpose set forth, consisting of a mainline T-rail having its cheek portion forming, in use, the outer side of the rail-head, expanded approximately to double the width of the cheek portion forming the inner or flange side thereof and adapted at said inner side to conform to the gageline of the main rail or rails to which it leads.

2. The herein-described construction of a railway-rail forming a frog wing-rail, a crossing-rail or switch-rail with an expanded wearing tread-surface for the purpose set forth, consisting of a'T-rail having its cheek portion forming, in use, the outer side of the railhead expanded beyond the width of the cheek portion forming the inner or flange side thereof and adapted at said inner side to conform to the gage-line of the main rail or rails to which-it leads, with reinforcing-ribs extending between said expanded cheek portion and the rail-flange at intervals along the rail.

3. The herein-described construction of a railway-rail forming a frog wing-rail, a crossing-rail or switch-rail with an expanded wearing tread-surface forthe purpose set forth, consisting of a T-rail having its cheek portion forming, in use, the outer side of the railhead expanded beyond the width of the cheek portion forming the inner or flange side thereof and adapted at said inner side to conform to the gage-line of the main rail or rails to which it leads, with the rail-flange at said outer side expanded to extend beyond the width of the cheek portion on said side, and reinforcing-flanges expanded toward their lower ends and extending between said expanded cheek portion and flange at intervals along the rail.

AXEL A. STROM.

In presence of A. U. THORIEN, F. M. l/VIRTZ. 

